‘I wasn’t paying attention’

The 2007 driving and texting laws talked about older-style flip phones of the early and mid-2000s, said Shelly Baldwin, legislative and media relations manager at the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.

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“It doesn’t define ‘texting’ as all of the myriad of things we do on our smartphones,” she said.

Current laws require some serious updates regarding electronics use while driving, police said.

“The law really needs to catch up with technology,” Lattin said. “When the law was originated, all people could do on their phone was talk or text.”

The same problem comes up in the Tri-Cities, said Chris Thorson, Washington State Patrol trooper.

“(Drivers) will not admit to why they drove into the back of someone at 50 miles an hour,” Thorson said. “They’ll just say ‘I wasn’t paying attention.’”

Out of 331 Tri-City drivers caught on the phone by the state patrol during the first six months of 2016, 217 got a ticket, 113 were given verbal warnings and one handed a written warning, Thorson said. Out of 27 caught texting, 18 resulted in a ticket and nine were verbal warnings.

This isn’t counting cases where a trooper could not prove wrongdoing.

“We can’t just grab people’s phones,” Thorson said.

Traffic tickets for texting in the state of Washington could start at $136, while a negligent driving citation could be around $550, Thorson said.

Drivers can also be distracted when on a hands-free device, which could affect peripheral vision, Baldwin said.

“Your peripheral vision is one of the things that keeps you safe at intersections,” Baldwin said “You need peripheral vision to deal with all of that.”

‘It can wait’

The state traffic safety commission has conducted campaigns and events, sometimes involving temporary patrol increases, to help officers look out for drivers on their cellphones.

In Bellingham, officers used the height advantage of riding in a utility truck to look for drivers using phones in their cars.

“They wrote an amazing number of tickets in a very short amount of time,” Baldwin said.

The traffic safety commission also works with insurance companies to issue grants to schools that help educate new drivers. Peers and instructors check items off a list and send out photos to verify that they complete certain tasks.

“They’re already new drivers and there’s a learning process,” Baldwin said. “Add a cellphone into the mix and that’s really dangerous.”

Her advice? Turn it off, put it in your glove box or hand it to a passenger.